Blood On Their Hands
by SelDear
Summary: Sometimes the men sworn to keep us safe are the most dangerous ones of all.


**Blood on their Hands**

Sam came around the corner a moment too soon and was witness to something she'd rather not have seen.

The Colonel's knife sliced brutally through flesh, cartilage, and vein, releasing a tide of red as the priest died. Behind him, the butt end of Teal'c's staff weapon cracked loudly against spinal vertebrae as he disposed of the other man in the chamber.

The faint inhalation of breath from the man whose arm was looped over her shoulder matched her own feelings about the matter. Her team-mates looked up.

Sam met the eyes of her commanding officer, reminding herself that she trusted these men with her life. If he saw the moment's revulsion in her expression, he showed no sign of it. "Report, Captains."

The title brought her back to her reason for coming ahead. "Most of SG-5 are out of the cells, sir."

"Most?"

"Fife died when they tortured him. Colonel Adamson has his tag. He and Daniel are bringing Vega along – she's only got one good leg."

"And you?" Colonel O'Neill indicated Captain Messer.

"Lotta bruises, sir. Can run without help – but it's nice to have someone to lean on." Luckily for Sam the Captain was thin and lanky rather than big and bulky.

There was a clatter behind them, and the three remaining SGC personnel jogged up the corridor – in Lieutenant Vega's case, half-jog, half-hop. Her face was stoic, but the slightly green tinge to her dusky skin indicated how painful the injury was.

Teal'c was already checking the other door as the Colonel pulled a nearby ornamental cloth over the dead priest and stood up. From the other side of the table, the corpse was hardly visible – unless you were looking for it. "How bad is it, Vega?"

Vega was made of stern stuff. "Bad, sir."

"Right, Daniel, Carter, you guys are playing Florence Nightingale. We have a bit of breathing space now, but once we're out heading for the gate, we won't." Daniel was already hauling splint sticks and bandages out of his pack as the Colonel spoke. "Teal'c and I will recon ahead." A gun was tossed to Captain Messer. "Carter, give Adamson your Beretta. You two cover them while they fix Vega up. Click twice when you're through and we'll click twice back if it's clear. If it's not, we'll click once. Got that?"

"Yes, sir."

The Colonel glanced over them, met Teal'c's gaze, and the next moment the pair of them had vanished on silent feet.

Sam bent her attention to Vega's leg. The Lieutenant was laid out on the ground, and as she met Daniel's gaze, Sam acknowledged it was probably going to be messy.

It was. They gave her painkillers and something to bite, then splinted the leg as swiftly as they could, took the sticks, and bound it together. Hardly a clean job, but it would have to hold until the reinforcements came or they got through the gate.

The grunts coming from Vega's throat indicated that the process wasn't any more enjoyable for her than it was for her field medics. Her skin was a pale shade of puce after the splinting, but she hauled herself up using Daniel as a prop, stubborn as hell even when drugged to the teeth.

Sam got to her feet and looked over their party as she clicked her radio twice to signal Colonel O'Neill. A second later it clicked back twice. "We're good to go," she murmured, pointing to the door.

"Colonel, you and Daniel had better hold onto Lieutenant Vega. No, Daniel, take her left side." That would leave Colonel Adamson on Vega's right side - and leave his shooting arm free if he needed to wield a weapon. "Messer, you're with me on rearguard; Daniel, Colonel, take the lead. Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c should be keeping an eye out for the enemy so follow them."

Daniel eased himself under Vega's arm. "You know, if this was part of the temple, I'm surprised there isn't anyone else here." Evidently he hadn't yet spotted the dead men.

Colonel Adamson opened his mouth, then shut it as he caught Sam's eye and she shook her head slightly.

It wasn't that the men were dead - Daniel was never that squeamish or he'd never have been left on SG-1. It was the ease with which Sam's team-mates had disposed of the enemy: face to face, swift and brutal. And if Daniel saw the corpses, he would look to Sam's face and he would see her fear and her nausea and he would know.

Sam wasn't ready for him to know - not yet. She wasn't sure _she_ was ready to know just yet.

And SG-5 needed her capabilities as an officer _now_, so she shunted the revulsion away.

"We're not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, Daniel." Sam said, indicating the corridor. "Let's go."

They left the room and its grisly remains behind, moving stealthily through the maze-like twists and turns of the palace.

There were no surprises for them as they made their way along the corridor - the Colonel and Teal'c evidently having dealt with any resistance. There was only one dead body along the way - and it wasn't really visible unless you were looking backwards. Captain Messer gave her a quick glance as they passed it, but she shook her head at him. She was fine.

She had to be fine.

The run to the gate was torturous. Vega passed out twice, and in the end Teal'c was required to pick up the Lieutenant and put her over his shoulder. The Colonels helped support the increasingly unsteady Messer while Daniel ran ahead to dial the gate and Sam kept an eye out for a pursuit.

None came.

They reached the Stargate. Daniel dialled Earth. They made it home; complete with the probe which Sam took a moment to trundle into the event horizon before stepping through herself. Then the medical team were all over them - a swarm of white-coated bees with their little stings in hand, buzzing at the injuries each person had received.

Several times she caught the Colonel trying to catch her eye. She steadfastly refused to look at him and escaped as soon as the post-gate check-up was completed.

In the locker room, she stripped with neat efficiency, dumping her clothes in the bottom of her locker, picking up a towel and heading into the showers. She needed to think through what she'd seen today, to deal with it at her own pace.

Both Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c made it easy to forget they'd been trained as killers. The Colonel deflected attention with his garrulous chatter and supposed stupidity. Teal'c let attention wash over him by standing still and silent, observing much but speaking little. Each set of tactics was social camouflage as skilful as any Sam had seen used in the field.

No, she wouldn't be telling Daniel about this. Not in a hurry. Daniel needed to believe in the inherent purity of those around him. Oh, he knew what the Colonel was capable of, what Teal'c had done; but he didn't _know_. Not the way Sam did after watching her team-mates in brutal, bloody action.

Did it make her squeamish? Yes. Soldier that she was, she'd seen death in a thousand guises and never flinched from it - but the methods used had been those of distance warfare. Not hand-to-hand, face-to-face, run the blade over their throat and watch them die gasping in their own blood...

Sam scrubbed her body hard, seeking to slough off more than just the blood and sweat and dirt of the mission.

She had to work with these men. Trust them with her life. Look them in the eye and know the full extent of their capabilities - including killing another human being with bare hands if necessary.

If necessary.

She stilled and the water poured over her skin, washing the suds down her body and into the drain.

Necessity.

That was the key. Her team-mates didn't kill for pleasure or fun - any more than she gunned down men in cold blood for personal enjoyment. The tasks they were given formed part of a job. Frequently, it wasn't a nice one.

Blood on the hands of the Colonel and Teal'c kept her hands - and Daniel's - clean. It was a trade of sorts, uneven and unfair.

Still, Sam suspected that neither of her team-mates would trade places - even if she had offered.

And that was the kind of men they were.

She rinsed off the soap, dried herself and got changed.

The guys were waiting outside the locker room and she gave them a brief nod before continuing past them down the corridor. "Enjoy, guys."

"Carter?" She turned back to meet the Colonel's gaze.

"Sir?"

"Uh..." As if suddenly realising that corridor was no place to hold a conversation about his 2IC's response to the dark-and-bloody bits of his past, he hesitated. "You'll be up in the briefing room later?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. I'll see you at the briefing then."

----

She was in the briefing room fifteen minutes before the briefing was due to start, staring down at the embarkation room below and the people preparing to go through the gate.

The sound of the technicians talking to each other in the control rooms was audible from up here - as was Sergeant Harriman's call of, "Chevron seven, locked!"

The 'kawoosh' blew out, the event horizon formed, the MALP data was returned and SG-5 trooped up the ramp and into worlds beyond. Trusting each other and the people who waited for their return - and shedding blood in the name of that trust where they needed to.

No. Not a nice job.

But someone had to do it.

And while people like Kinsey might whine about the things that went wrong, they weren't in the action, doing what was _right_ - so what right did they have to whine?

Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c were in the frontline, doing what needed to be done so people like Senator Kinsey, Colonel Maybourne, and Lieutenant Colonel Samuels could slime their way through the politics in Washington. The blood they'd shed had been in good faith and for good cause. Was it right? No. The shedding of blood was never _right_.

It was just that sometimes it was _necessary_.

Sam trusted her team-mates - her friends - with her life.

There was a noise behind her but she didn't turn around. She knew who it was before he came to stand by her at the window.

"Carter?"

"Sir." She didn't turn towards him, leaving him the opening for the conversation.

"What you saw earlier today..."

"...is your business, sir."

He blinked, staring at her. "It is?"

"You did what you had to."

There was silence as he digested her words and her understanding. Possibly, after her reaction on the planet, he hadn't expected such thoughts from her. Maybe he'd expected condemnation, revulsion, and disgust?

Maybe he would have gotten them if she hadn't had the time to think things through.

"And you're okay with the fact that your commanding officer is a killer?"

And maybe the condemnation, revulsion and disgust were his own - for himself and what he had done.

_I've been asked to do some damned, distasteful things..._

Sam looked at him, held his gaze. "You're not a killer, Sir."

He looked back at her, a bitter twist to his mouth. "I have blood on my hands, Captain."

She heard the subtext. _I am not the man you think I am._

And he needed to know that he wasn't. He needed to know and believe that he was much more than the man she thought he was.

"If there'd been an alternative, you'd have taken it." She glanced back out at the gateroom. "We're trained to do what's necessary in keeping our people safe, sir. And what happened was necessary. You and Teal'c knew that, or you wouldn't have done it." _And I don't know how you live with it on your soul, sir, but for being able to look yourself in the mirror and keep going, you have my utmost respect._ "Thank you."

Breath gusted out in a snort. "For what?"

"For doing what's necessary. And for getting back up to do it again - when it's necessary. For hating it. But knowing that if you didn't do it, someone else might."

_For being the man you are and the commander I respect more than any human on Earth, sir._

There was a long silence.

Then, "You have a strange way of looking at this, Carter."

A smile touched her lips. "Thank you, sir."

"That wasn't necessarily a compliment!"

In spite of herself, the smile deepened. "I know."

The wormhole shut down behind SG-5 leaving the gateroom once again grey and dark.

"Will you tell Daniel?"

She looked at him, once again sombre. "No." Daniel didn't need to know. Maybe someday he'd find out, but until then, why trouble him with it?

The Colonel nodded, just once.

Sam wasn't sure if it was relief or just acceptance of her decision.

There were footsteps on the stairs and after a moment General Hammond entered the room.

"Colonel O'Neill. Captain Carter." He frowned. "You're early for the briefing."

"Only by two minutes, sir," Colonel O'Neill said jauntily, glancing at his watch.

"That's what I mean, Colonel," Hammond quirked an eyebrow. "Seat yourselves, I'll be right with you."

Sam moved to take a seat at the table and the Colonel touched her shoulder. "Carter." She looked up at him, startled. "It's an honour to serve with you." And there was more in the set phrase than she could analyse - but she understood what he was trying to say.

"Sir. It's an honour to serve with _you_."

He looked down at his hands. "I'm not so sure about that, Captain."

And that was a part of his curse - not only responsibility, but also the guilt of failure that came with it.

Sam caught one of his hands and squeezed it lightly in a gesture intended to convey more than just respect and admiration for a superior officer. It was the only acceptable gesture through which she could properly convey friendship, affection and her complete trust in his ability to shoulder the burdens he took upon him.

"I am."

It was all the reassurance she could give him. She hoped it would be enough.

He squeezed her hand back, just as lightly.

So maybe it was.

- **fin** -


End file.
